DieselNet: Diesel Engine Emissions Online

Engine & emission technology online—since 1997

The Log

19 February 2019: Negotiators from the European Parliament, Commission, and Council agreed on the final CO2 emission targets for heavy-duty trucks—a 15% emission reduction target by 2025, and a 30% target by 2030 [more ...]

16 February 2019: BP released the 2019 edition of its Energy Outlook, which analyzes the trends in global energy markets out to 2040 [more ...]

13 February 2019: The deficit in the palladium market looks set to widen dramatically in 2019, with stricter emissions legislation forecast to stimulate double-digit rises in palladium demand from European and Chinese automakers, according to the newest edition of the Pgm Market Report by Johnson Matthey. Palladium prices surged by about 70% in the last six months, exceeding $1400 per t.o., driven in part by record high autocatalyst demand, as stricter vehicle testing procedures—including the WLTP and RDE test requirements—increased loadings on European cars. The market for platinum, on the other hand, remains oversupplied, with pricing near 10-year lows at around $800 per t.o.

10 January 2019: Fiat Chrysler has reached a settlement with the US EPA and CARB over diesel emissions cheating, and agreed to modify more than 100,000 noncompliant diesel vehicles sold in the United States and to pay a civil penalty of $305 million [more ...]

7 January 2019: The UK new car market declined by 6.8% in 2018, with annual registrations falling for a second year to 2,367,147 units, according to data by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). The declining sales are attributed to the regulatory changes in EU type approval testing (such as the introduction of WLTC and RDE testing requirements) and by continued anti-diesel policies in the UK. Anti-diesel rhetoric and negative fiscal measures took their toll—the SMMT said—with the diesel sector down by 29.6% in 2018, and December marking the 21st consecutive month of decline for the fuel type. The sales of petrol vehicles increased by 8.7% in 2018, and the sales of alternative fueled vehicles (AFV) increased by 20.9%. The UK market share for diesels dropped to 31.7%, for petrol cars increased to 62.3%, and for AFVs increased to 6.0%. The strong growth in sales of AFVs were in part driven by a Government’s plug-in car grant that expired in October 2018.

5 January 2019:Midland County, Texas; 2027—Mike Shellman of the Oily Stuff blog offers a solid dose of black humor about the future fortunes (or misfortunes) of the US shale oil industry.

4 January 2019: Volvo Group will take a SEK 7 billion (USD 780 million) charge in relation to estimated costs to address the issue of a “degrading emission control component”—presumably a faulty SCR catalyst—in Volvo heavy-duty truck engines [more ...]

27 November 2018: Southwest Research Institute has updated their DieselNet presence: SwRI on DieselNet.

26 November 2018: General Motors announced a massive restructuring plan that involves closing seven manufacturing plants worldwide—including five plants in North America—discontinuing several slow-selling vehicle models, and a reduction of more than 14,000 jobs [more ...].

22 November 2018: Updated Technology Guide paper on Gas Phase Measurements. The updated material includes a video on NOx measurement under real driving conditions using a fast CLD analyzer.

14 November 2018: Updated summary of European emission standards for heavy-duty truck and bus engines, with more information on off-cycle emission testing, in-service conformity, and OBD.

13 November 2018: In its World Energy Outlook 2018, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that global energy demand is set to grow by more than 25% to 2040, and warns of tightening oil market in the 2020s due to insufficient investment in conventional oil projects [more ...].

10 November 2018: VERT Association has announced the dates for two important emission control events in the upcoming year 2019:

VERT Forum—Thursday, 14 March 2019 at EMPA in Dübendorf, Switzerland. The VERT Forum is a technical knowledge transfer event dealing with emission control technology for internal combustion engines. This 10th Forum is organized again in cooperation of EMPA and the VERT Association and will be mainly devoted to SCRT retrofit solutions for HDV and LDV as they are available from VERT member companies.

23rd ETH Conference on Combustion Generated Nanoparticles—Monday, 17 June to Thursday, 20 June 2019 at the Swiss Institute of Technology ETH in Zürich, Switzerland. The ETH-NPC started in 1997 as the first interdisciplinary conference on basic research, development, engineering and implementation of best available technology to minimize the health impact of nanoparticles emitted from engines and other combustion sources. The event’s goal is to reduce emissions from the entire worldwide ICE fleet, as has been successfully achieved with the Euro 6/VI particle filtration technology for diesel and petrol engines.

Diesel Engine & Emissions

The diesel engine is the most efficient power plant among all known types of internal combustion engines. Heavy trucks, urban buses, and industrial equipment are powered almost exclusively by diesel engines all over the world and diesel powered passenger cars are increasingly popular. For the foreseeable future, the world’s transportation needs will continue to rely on the diesel engine and its gasoline counterpart. However, both engine technologies are evolving at an ever increasing pace to meet two major challenges: lower emissions and increased energy efficiency.

Internal combustion engines are significant contributors to air pollution that can be harmful to human health and the environment. In response, clean diesel technologies with near-zero emissions of NOx and PM have been developed and introduced in regions with the most stringent emission standards: North America, Europe and Japan. While new clean diesel engines are gradually replacing the population of older diesel engines in these regions, older engines already in service are being retrofitted with clean diesel technologies to hasten emissions reductions. As this trend spreads to other parts of the world, the environmental focus has shifted to climate changing emissions and energy efficiency. The environmental benefit of low greenhouse gas emissions, traditionally associated with the diesel engine, is no longer sufficient. To meet future greenhouse gas and fuel economy regulations, new technologies are being developed—low temperature combustion, waste heat recovery, powertrain electrification, to name a few—that further increase the efficiency not only of the diesel engine powertrain but the entire vehicle as well. Under low-carbon regulatory policies, the scope for potential improvements is no longer limited to engines and vehicles, but also includes life cycle effects of fuel production and vehicle manufacture.

DieselNet, the only information service exclusively devoted to diesel engines and emissions, is an internet forum for the exchange of technical and business information on diesel engines, fuels, emissions and many of the important technologies required by the clean and efficient diesel engines of the future.